Santorum’s Base

[I]n January Santorum was the preferred choice of only about 20 percent of respondents who both strongly oppose gay marriage and think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. When these exact same individuals were re-interviewed last week, though, more than 50 percent of them now preferred the former Pennsylvania Senator. Meanwhile, the display reveals only a slight uptick in his standing from January to February among more socially liberal and moderate Republican primary voters. All told, then, the evidence strongly suggests that moral conservatives sparked the Santorum surge.

What I find somewhat infuriating in the language of the linked poll is the notion that wanting to recriminalize all abortion in every state and end all civil unions/marriages for gay couples is somehow "conservative." It would be radically opposed to the state of affairs that has existed in this country for decades. Opposing marriage equality can be called many things, but "socially conservative" is simply not one of them. When you favor weakening the social signals that encourage commitment, responsibility, family integration and stability, you are not socially conservative. You are, in fact, advocating the kind of social signal that deems a small minority of society outside of and beneath all moral norms.